CIMSS and JPSS and AMS in 2024: Part II
CIMSS Scientists who work with JPSS data had numerous presentations at the American Meteorological Society’s Annual Meeting held at the end of January in Baltimore. This blog post discusses a poster by Tom Greenwald who (along with co-authors) investigated how microwave data from AMSR-2 can be used to estimate sea ice concentration in regions where very high-resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data are not present. The AMSR-2 images were validated using very high-resolution Landsat visible imagery; that is, this was done in regions of clear skies to show that the microwave data would be producing useful information in regions of clouds. The high-resolution AMSR-2 Sea Ice Concentration data are used, as the poster notes, to “track the ice edge and marginal ice zone (MIZ) with a degree of confidence not achieved with the standard AMSR2 sea ice concentration.”
A dedicated CIMSS Satellite Blog reader might recall past blog posts that also discussed this technique, here and here. AMSR-2 gives high-resolution, quality sea ice detection to augment SAR observations. Future work includes a more thorough comparison between this product and legacy products. A Quick Guide on this product is available here.